brycenesbitt

I had a poor tire myself that did not last like prior Conti Contacts.
Looking online I've seen disturbing reports about a slip in the quality of Continental bike tires.
I tried writing to Continental but received no reply.

A prior thread on this same topic blew up into Nationalism -- I am asking about quality not country of origin for tires.

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Are others with NEWER Continental bike tires seeing issues?
Is there a way, beyond potentially unreliable online reviews, to gauge quality of bike tires these days?
Is anyone doing and publishing life tests for bike tires?

The TREND of Continental reviews appears to be getting worse, consistent with the idea that a production change has taken place, or bad tires entered distribution.

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Continental Ride Tour City/Trekking Bicycle Tire
1.0 out of 5 stars Squirrely, but at least you know their birthdate.
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2020
Size: 26 x 1.75 (47-559) Verified Purchase
First, the good: I've been riding and working on bicycles for 63 years and these tires are the first I have seen with an easily decipherable production date. Rubber starts deteriorating as soon as it pops out of the mold and tires get slippery when they get old. This is an important safety feature that all tires should have. Now, the bad: these tires ruined the handling characteristics of my bike. It is difficult to start a turn and difficult to stop
a turn once it is initiated. I can't ride with no hands since I mounted these tires because the bike no longer responds quickly to changing the lean angle. These are the most squirrely tires I have ever ridden on. They are the first bike tires I have seen which are directional but I noticed the arrow before I mounted them so they are mounted correctly. These tires take all of the fun out of riding a bike and they border on being dangerous, in my opinion. I will be replacing them after only 18 miles.

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Continental Ride Tour City/Trekking Bicycle Tire
1.0 out of 5 stars Cracks on the side wall after 6 month use
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2022
Verified Purchase
There might be quality issue for the tire. After 6 month with normal use (~5 miles per day), there are cracks all over the side of the tire.

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Continental Ride Tour City/Trekking Bicycle Tire
J. Fogarty
1.0 out of 5 stars Absolute failure of a tire
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2021
Verified Purchase
There is absolutely no reason to ever buy this tire. I've been bicycle commuting for 15 years and purchased these last year as all other tires were sold out. I have NEVER had such a bad tire, in tens of thousands of miles. I threw one away after only 500 miles as I kept getting mystery flats, and today I'm doing the same to another. These tires are not only incredibly poor quality, they DO NOT FIT 700 wheels. I have NEVER had such hard to fit and remove tires such as these. EVER. The last two tube replacements I had to ruin the tube to get the tires off. These are CLEARLY faulty, unbearably low quality, pieces of junk.

Follow up edit: the last one I had just wouldn't come off a wheel without separating the metal from rubber, rendering it useless. What pieces of trash.

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Continental Ride Tour City/Trekking Bicycle Tire
1.0 out of 5 stars Bad quality tire
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2022
Size: 28 x 1 5/8 x 1 1/8 (28-622) Verified Purchase
Bought this tire 2 weeks ago and the side walls are already cracking. I have no confidence in the tire lasting for very long. Planning on returning ASAP.

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Continental Ride Tour City/Trekking Bicycle Tire
Nancy Miller
1.0 out of 5 stars Not very puncture resistant.
Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2019
Size: 26 x 1.75 (47-559) Verified Purchase
The tire seemed to be of good quality but didn't have the stiffness of a good puncture resistant tire. In fact it seemed much more pliable than most normal tires. Curious, I tested it by trying to push a thorn through the top of the tread by hand, there was absolutely no resistance, the thorn easily went straight through. I thought that maybe once the tire was inflated and cruising there could be some unintuitive effect that does deflect punctures, perhaps there is. but when I went back and read the many one star reviews where people have found that in fact the tire readily punctures, I didn't bother putting this on my bike and sent it straight back.
What equivocation could have been used to attach the label "thorn resistant" to this product? A few millimeters of ingenious neon goo sandwiched in there?

Who cares, it's not likely to work well enough for people who routinely ride over sharp thorns and broken glass.
If that's the kind of environment you are biking through, save yourself some time and don't order this tire.

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Continental Ride Tour City/Trekking Bicycle Tire
Kate
1.0 out of 5 stars Edge of tire too short
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2022
Size: 27 x 1 1/4 (32-630) Verified Purchase
Tire would not go into edge of wheel. Returning and hauling my bike to a local shop. The person putting them on for me has put a thousand tires on and he showed me the difference between what he took off and why these will not go on.

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Continental Ride Tour City/Trekking Bicycle Tire
papas1
1.0 out of 5 stars Do not waste your money on this tire
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2018
Size: 20 x 1.75 (47-406) Verified Purchase
This is by far the worst tire I have ever had. I was going to do a pro/con comparison, but after experiencing this tire, I have nothing to put in the pro column. The tire seemed to be out of round. The bead would not set properly and the ride felt like every rotation you were riding over a broom handle. I almost got bounced right off the bike. After more than an hour of working with the bead, it finally set in enough that the bike was able to be ridden. As for the ride.....take a brick, strap it to your bike seat and take a ride. That is what the ride feels like. Also, the ride is slower. Do not waste your money on this tire.

1.0 out of 5 stars Tire sidewalls have extreme cracking after only ~25miles of use, quality issue
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2019 by Ao
Size: 28 x 1 5/8 x 1 1/8 (28-622)Verified Purchase
This is the first time I am disappointed by Continental. I have used other tires (gatorskin) and never disappointed. This is my first try of their rail tires "RIDE tour" brand. This sidewall cracking after only about 25 miles is unacceptable and obviously a problem with the tire construction quality. Amazon, how can I report this quality issue to you and Continental? See the attached fotos, the tires still have the new tire "hair" on them.
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P. Steyaert
1.0 out of 5 stars Pain in the butt
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2018
Size: 28 x 1 5/8 x 1 1/8 (28-622) Verified Purchase
These tires are a pain in the butt to get on rim. I'm not new at this either. Don't buy unless you want to spend two hours gettin em on. Furthermore if you out in the cold, like I was last week, and you get a flat, gooooooood luck!!! I have went through puncturing 4 tubes trying to get these tires on. They suck. i'm writing the company to get replacements or reimbursement.

Dan
1.0 out of 5 stars Unusable
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2021
Size: 16 x 1.75 (47-305)Verified Purchase
One of the four tires I purchased will not seat on any rim. 25% defect rate.... Can't recommend these to anyone.

Ironfish653

It's a $25 hybrid tire, what exactly are you expecting from it? If you're unsure, for a few bucks more, you can get into some Michelin Protek's or the Schwalbe Marathon family.
Either way, I'd get them from a bike-specific vendor like Jensen, or BikeTiresDirect, rather than Amazon; that super -great price might really be old stock or factory seconds that have been passed around the world through multiple vendors.

veganbikes

Didn't you just post this thread and now it is locked?

Look if you buy cheap tires from a place that isn't a bike shop it is likely you will have issues or at the very least it isn't surprising. The place of manufacturer may not matter so much if it is from a good manufacturer and is not a fake or something.

One of those reviews is someone who couldn't get the tire on the rim which is a common user error. Another is cracks which could happen from lack of inflation or other user errors and without pictures it is useless. One had seating issues which if it was purchased through an authorized dealer could have easily been warrantied however it is a 16" and there are 4 ISO diameters for 16" tires according to the late great Sheldon Brown . Another was the ride was bad on a $25 tire and probably wasn't installed properly and another was the tire wasn't super puncture protectant.
Basically all the reviews are debunked well enough or people complaining about a cheap tire being a cheap tire. Cheap tires aren't good but they will keep you rolling till you can get the right tire.

indyfabz

If you are worried, why are you even considering them?

I’ve been touring fully loaded and commuting on Conti Top Contact II tires since forever, and I often incorporate rough “gravel” roads into my touring routes. I have flatted 3 times since 2014. At least two of those flats would likely have happened with any tube tire. One was caused by what looked like a tiny wire from a shredded truck tire. The other was vaunt a nearly razor sharp piece of sheet metal. I have never had sidewall problems.

easyupbug 

What you are asking about is is both the structure Continental uses to assure product quality and the structures in place to assure the product meets consumer demands, which are very different. A huge company like Continental if they have a ongoing quality control problem will flood the suppliers, manufacturing plants, warehouses, etc. with engineers to resolve the issue quickly to protect their reputation or because they have lowered the quality assurance standards to meet a price point consumers demand so be it. If this poor product performance is as frequent as you suggest I would guess it is a marketing decision and you need to move to another tire, I like Marathons.

shelbyfv

Most folks just try something different if they don't like a tire.

Herzlos

Some of those reviews are fishy. Someone who's been working on bikes for 62 years and didn't know that you could get directional tires?
It's also worth noting that people don't usually post reviews for stuff that went fine. You may be better finding a bike shop that has stock of them and ask - if they are genuinely garbage then they'll know.

As already mentioned, Amazon isn't necessarily the best source - these could be old stock, fakes or rejects or whatever. I'd be more likely to try and get them from an actual bike shop.

Also, given you have doubts about these, why not buy one of the hundreds of alternative 26x1.75 hybrid tires on the market?

t2p

26 x 1.75

one of the first options I would consider is Panaracer Pasela 26 x 1.75 Protite folding bead

70sSanO

Based on how many years you’ve been on BF and the number of posts, something has really set you off to go to such lengths over a particular model the Continental offers. It takes a lot of effort to post those reviews.

I imagine almost everyone has purchased tires that they considered to be garbage, or at the very least not worth what they paid; probably a lot more than you invested. And they won’t buy them again.

I’d ask for tire options that will give you the ride and durability you want. I don’t ride a lot of Panaracers, but the ones I use seem to hold up against UV breakdown quite well and the sidewalls haven’t cracked even when one of my mtb’s sits for a while.

John

brycenesbitt

Throwaway culture, with crappy products.

brycenesbitt

Hopefully a proper vendor does not have "seconds" that get passed through the world. They shred anything with their name on it.
That said on occasion factory workers will spirit out of a factory rejected parts, relabel them, and sell them as new.

3alarmer 

.
...I have had a couple of tire failures that were covered under warranty, by Schwalbe. I had a couple of tires from what must have been a bad batch from Conti, but it was one of their lower end, cheap tires, like the super sport. I think they outsource those to whomever. Wasn't worth pursuing some sort of refund/replacement. Mostly I ride Vittoria Rubino Pro tires now, and those have been pretty consistent in quality. I have flatted a couple of them, but I have never had a tire that would not flat sometimes, given my local road conditions.

Inner tubes sometimes come through in bad batches as well, even from Conti.... **** happens.

Paul Barnard

As is the norm for this place, people go out of the way to misunderstand the OP.

The OP has long used inexpensive Conti tires with great results. I suspect that, like me, he's become brand loyal. His recent experiences with Conti tires, and the experiences of others, have found Conti tires lacking in quality. He's disappointed, and rather than bailing on Conti, he'd rather them go back to the quality tire that saw him become a brand loyalist.

OP, I have not yet had any bad experiences with Conti. The last set I bought was made in China. I'll see what happens. So far, I am very impressed.

Ironfish653

Then you don’t really know how Amazon works.

70sSanO

We have all found a particular model that was amazing and inexpensive. If it was an older design companies used to just continued to produce it. But sooner or later it is just not good business practice for companies to make a lower end product better than it needs to be; especially if the demand and cost no longer makes it profitable.

One day we buy the newer version product and it just isn’t as good. This is life. Nothing stays the same forever if it is good and cheap.

Maybe supply shortages caused temporary changes in material types. Maybe those changes are not temporary and this is what you’ll get for what is being spent. The OP can rant or move on.

I actually did own a Kenmore washer and dryer and they lasted more than 20 years. The next set didn’t come close to that. I could rant all I want but I’ll never get 20 years again.

John

Ironfish653

Nah, we read his first post; (the one they locked) we know where he’s coming from.
Presenting a selection of the one-star reviews from Amazon as his opening evidence smacks of confirmation bias. We’re not biting.

I’ve used expensive Contis and cheap Contis; the RideTour is known for two things; a tall, narrow-ish profile, and a low price.

brycenesbitt

Amazon can't touch it, if it never leaves the factory. I'll stand by the statement that a quality vendor never lets seconds get into the clutches of the gray market resellers that Amazon so gleefully gives a global audience.

This has nothing to do with who makes good consistent bike tires,
or who does objective independent testing of tire lifetime or consistency.

indyfabz

Seems like you are confusing vendor with manufacturer. A Continental tire vended by XYZ is not going to have XYZ’s name on the product.

And Amazon has some shady vendors. Not everything one buys through Amazon is sold and shipped by Amazon. In June I ordered a headlight manufactured by a well known company. Included was supposed to be the mount, charging cable and light unit. When the sealed Amazon box arrived with the item inside in the manufacture’s packaging, the light unit was missing. Got Amazon to ship another one over night. Care to guess what was missing from the second shipment? I looked at the page for the item and could not determine who the vendor was. Eventually got my $80 bucks refunded. Kept the brackets and cables as Amazon didn’t ask for them back.

In any event, I recommended some great Conti tires above. I order them from an etailer in the states or from a local shop. I’ve never had a problem.

JesseABN

Didn’t read all this thread however here’s a pic of a new 5000 from Amazon after about 30 miles and the second flat tube. Not going this route again.

georges1

Ouch this isn't good at all

The Chemist

Haven't had any issues with either of the Continental tire types I've got in use - GP5000s on my road bike, Urban Contacts on my folding bike. The GP5000s have now done >6000km in just over 10 months with only a single flat which didn't even take place on a ride to the best of my knowledge (was only flat after I took my bike on a bus, but not beforehand). Still in good rideable condition. No cracking, rotting, etc. The Urban Contacts get far less use, but have been rock solid - not a single flat. I don't have anything negative to say about Continental quality based on my personal experience.

georges1

I am riding Mountain and Race King on my MTBs and never had an issue.I will see how my Grand Prix 4 season behave